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Thursday, September 16, 2010

The American Lenin

It's harder and harder these days to tell a liberal from a conservative -- given the former category's increasingly blatant hostility toward the First Amendment, and the latter's prissy new disdain for the Second Amendment -- but it's still easy to tell a liberal from a libertarian.

Just ask about either Amendment.

If what you get back is a spirited defense of the ideas of this country's Founding Fathers, what you've got is a libertarian. By shameful default, libertarians have become America's last and only reliable stewards of the Bill of Rights.

But if -- and this usually seems a bit more difficult to most people -- you'd like to know whether an individual is a libertarian or a conservative, ask about Abraham Lincoln.

Suppose a woman -- with plenty of personal faults herself, let that be stipulated -- desired to leave her husband: partly because he made a regular practice, in order to go out and get drunk, of stealing money she had earned herself by raising chickens or taking in laundry; and partly because he'd already demonstrated a proclivity for domestic violence the first time she'd complained about his stealing.

Now, when he stood in the doorway and beat her to a bloody pulp to keep her home, would we memorialize him as a hero? Or would we treat him like a dangerous lunatic who should be locked up, if for no other reason, then for trying to maintain the appearance of a relationship where there wasn't a relationship any more? What value, we would ask, does he find in continuing to possess her in an involuntary association, when her heart and mind had left him long ago?

History tells us that Lincoln was a politically ambitious lawyer who eagerly prostituted himself to northern industrialists who were unwilling to pay world prices for their raw materials and who, rather than practice real capitalism, enlisted brute government force -- "sell to us at our price or pay a fine that'll put you out of business" -- for dealing with uncooperative southern suppliers. That's what a tariff's all about. In support of this "noble principle", when southerners demonstrated what amounted to no more than token resistance, Lincoln permitted an internal war to begin that butchered more Americans than all of this country's foreign wars -- before or afterward -- rolled into one.

Lincoln saw the introduction of total war on the American continent -- indiscriminate mass slaughter and destruction without regard to age, gender, or combat status of the victims -- and oversaw the systematic shelling and burning of entire cities for strategic and tactical purposes. For the same purposes, Lincoln declared, rather late in the war, that black slaves were now free in the south -- where he had no effective jurisdiction -- while declaring at the same time, somewhat more quietly but for the record nonetheless, that if maintaining slavery could have won his war for him, he'd have done that, instead.

The fact is, Lincoln didn't abolish slavery at all, he nationalized it, imposing income taxation and military conscription upon what had been a free country before he took over -- income taxation and military conscription to which newly "freed" blacks soon found themselves subjected right alongside newly-enslaved whites. If the civil war was truly fought against slavery -- a dubious, "politically correct" assertion with no historical evidence to back it up -- then clearly, slavery won.

Lincoln brought secret police to America, along with the traditional midnight "knock on the door", illegally suspending the Bill of Rights and, like the Latin America dictators he anticipated, "disappearing" thousands in the north whose only crime was that they disagreed with him. To finance his crimes against humanity, Lincoln allowed the printing of worthless paper money in unprecedented volumes, ultimately plunging America into a long, grim depression -- in the south, it lasted half a century -- he didn't have to live through, himself.

In the end, Lincoln didn't unite this country -- that can't be done by force -- he divided it along lines of an unspeakably ugly hatred and resentment that continue to exist almost a century and a half after they were drawn. If Lincoln could have been put on trial in Nuremburg for war crimes, he'd have received the same sentence as the highest-ranking Nazis.

If libertarians ran things, they'd melt all the Lincoln pennies, shred all the Lincoln fives, take a wrecking ball to the Lincoln Memorial, and consider erecting monuments to John Wilkes Booth. Libertarians know Lincoln as the worst President America has ever had to suffer, with Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson running a distant second, third, and fourth.

Conservatives, on the other hand, adore Lincoln, publicly admire his methods, and revere him as the best President America ever had. One wonders: is this because they'd like to do, all over again, all of the things Lincoln did to the American people? Judging from their taste for executions as a substitute for individual self-defense, their penchant for putting people behind bars -- more than any other country in the world, per capita, no matter how poorly it works to reduce crime -- and the bitter distaste they display for Constitutional "technicalities" like the exclusionary rule, which are all that keep America from becoming the world's largest banana republic, one is well-justified in wondering.

The troubling truth is that, more than anybody else's, Abraham Lincoln's career resembles and foreshadows that of V.I. Lenin, who, with somewhat better technology at his disposal, slaughtered millions of innocents -- rather than mere hundreds of thousands -- to enforce an impossibly stupid idea which, in the end, like forced association, was proven by history to be a resounding failure. Abraham Lincoln was America's Lenin, and when America has finally absorbed that painful but illuminating truth, it will finally have begun to recover from the War between the States.

L. Neil Smith is the award-winning author of 19 books including The Probability Broach, The Crystal Empire, Henry Martyn, The Lando Calrissian Adventures, Pallas, and (forthcoming) Bretta Martyn. An NRA Life Member and founder of the Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus, he has been active in the Libertarian movement for 34 years and is its most prolific and widely-published living novelist.

Permission to redistribute this article is herewith granted by the author -- provided that it is reproduced unedited, in its entirety, and appropriate credit given.

34 Comments:

Even if Abolition *HAD* been an objective, it would make Lincoln's rapacity even more deplorable.

FACT: Slavery - thanks to increasing mechanization - was a dying institution, which would likely not have survived another generation.

FACT: Lincoln could have paid fair market value for every slave in The South for far less than the monetary cost of The War of Northern Aggression -- not to mention sparing over 600,000 lives.

FACT: Had plantation-owners been paid such restitution, they would have been able to purchase said mechanization, thus preserving their livelihoods.

FACT: Lincoln was a virulent bigot who intended to deport every black - free or slave - "back" to Africa. Many were "repatriated" - if you define "repatriation" as "dropping them off at the first available/accessible shoreline."

One need only look at the history of Liberia and the Ivory Coast to see the (predictable) outcome of this policy. Yet the descendants those who remained - or whose ancestors immigrated after - still decry our great Republic instead of thanking G*D every single day for the blessing of being HERE instead of THERE.

DD writes: "Lincoln could have paid fair market value for every slave in The South [...]"

The money to fund this coming from where? I pretend to hear you say "taxes on plantation owners", because taxes on uninvolved Northerners would not have been right, since they were not slave owners and so don't deserve to lose money to fix a problem they didn't participate in. Likewise for taxing anybody else who didn't cause the problem, such as future generations to pay off loans taken out to pay plantation owners in the present.

"[...] Had plantation-owners been paid such restitution, they would have been able to purchase said mechanization, thus preserving their livelihoods."

Paid money that was taken from them in the first place? For a net loss from the administrative overhead to send the money to DC and back.

When we catch a pirate on the high seas, we're not supposed to pay him the fair market of the press-ganged crew we take from him, we're supposed to kill him and leave his body hung at the harbor entrance to discourage other pirates.

Outstanding! With the current generation of grade school students not sure of who Lincoln even was, when he lived or what war was perpetrated on the continent during his reign, maybe the legend will fade somewhat.

The vast majority, I can't say all because various flagged vessels were involved, but the majority of slaves were brought into North America by British, French, and Union flagged vessels. No slaves were brought into North America by vessels flying the Confederate National flag, nor any of the several states of the Confederacy.

Further, as the northern states outlawed slavery, they did so in a way to enable the slave owners within their states to "sell their human property south", few were granted freedom by their owners.

After the Confederacy lost their response to the Union invaders, the last states to hold chattel slaves were all in the Union. They sued the US government for compensation for their property illegally taken by the Thirteenth Amendment, they lost.

Why does the North get off scott free, at one time in history New York had more slaves per capita. Massive slave graves have been found in numerus areas of down town NY. But the North allways claims the high road.

More Confederate poison from the past. You/they lost. You deserved to lose. You kept people in chains. Literally. Lincoln saved the Union and put the nation on track to free the people the south kept in slavery. This is not Lenin. More bullshit like this and I won't be back.

Anon 7:48, yes Lincoln did in fact issue a warrant for the arrest of Chief Justice Taney, but not over the Dred Scott decision. There's no evidence that Lincoln disagreed with that decision.

The arrest warrant was over the ruling written by Taney, in ex parte Merryman, wherein it was ruled that there is no power for the president to suspend habeas corpus. Lincoln, and the US Army, ignored the order and continued to arrest people, virtually all in the northern states, and imprison them without charges or trial.

The arrest warrant story is here. Most people don't seem to be aware of the fact that Lincoln imprisoned 30,000 or 40,000 people without trial, in northern jails, wrecked hundreds of newspapers and their equipment, and much, much more. Stealing the election of 1864, for example.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of...the truth.The more I learn about Lincoln, and all the other idols of the libiots and progressives, the more I realize how screwed up our education system is.Good post.

Your response sounds dangerously like a reeducation camp except for the last line.

Yes, it is commonly known that the Eman. Proclamation was pure PR and was released only after a victory. Why you give a platform for L. Neil's free traitor err trader ideology that has and will continue to destroy American manufacturing, I have no clue.

The fact is that Kansas Scout is right, the South's elite kept dark skinned people in chains, and while we know that the EP freed no slaves in the Union states, without the CW, there would be no end to chattel slavery. I will agree that it was replaced by economic slavery in income taxes (but not fully until 1913).

You also cannot deny that Lincoln saved the Union, without which we would be vassals to powerful foriegn governments as we went the way of Yugoslavia or the USSR.

A better comparison of Lincoln would be to Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, both united their nations, but did it at terrible prices. Joe Stalin would be another comparison, along with Bismarck and Garibaldi. The question is: does the end justify the means, and we do not know because hindsight is 20/20.

Lincoln may have been friends with Marx, but that does not make him a Lenin. Lenin was more like a terrorist who seized power, than a politcian scheming to power which is what Lincoln did. And accusing Lincoln of Lenin's delusions of granduer is a bit much, Lincoln was more pragmatic than a dreamer.

There are far worse Presidents than Lincoln, most of his .gov expansion was reversed after his death (failing to recognize the RKBA of blacks in the South is their biggest failure).

Very little of Wilson's, FDR, LBJ, WJC, GWB and BHO's fed gov expansion has been reversed.

LOVE all the brainwashed who believe slavery was a SOUTHERN institution, and that it was the reason Lincoln started the war.

More facts for the uneducated:

FACT: I 1861 there were more slave OWNERS in the north, where most middle-class families had at least one house-servant. Some STATES banned further importation of slaves (which did nothing for the enslaved, or their offspring), some even banned the practice altogether -- but they were in the minority.

FACT: Not one of those slaves was freed by the WoNA, and remained enslaved AFTER the so-called "proclamation" was issued. They were freed ONLY by passage of the 13th Amendment.

Ever ask yourself why the bearded tyrant didn't free the slaves he actually had the power and legal right to free?

FACT: The EP wasn't signed "after a victory" - it was issued in response to ongoing riots and an overwhelming anti-war sentiment in the north. It was a ludicrous political ploy, seeking to tie the popular abolitionist sentiment to the war, hoping to end the riots and gain support for the war.

FACT: Lincoln said plainly that if he could end secession without freeing a single slave he would happily do it. He went on to say that if he could end it by freeing some and leaving others enslaved, he'd happily do THAT, and if he could end secession by freeing them all he'd do that too.

What he actually DID was issue a meaningless directive - backed by no legal right and against long precedent and the Constitution itself - declaring freedom for the slaves in the seceded states.

FACT: A miniscule percentage of those who fought for The South owned any slaves at all, and few would have fought to preserve slavery. The entire thing was about States' Rights and Private Property Rights. Those men fought to protect their homes and families - and their State - from the vicious and illegal incursion of a (post-secession) foreign enemy.

FACT: The states which seceded had every legal right to do so, and had offered safe passage to all union personnel and attempted to negotiate reimbursement for federal lands and improvements to same that lay within their dominion.

Lincoln ordered the soldiers at Ft. Sumter to stay, and attempted to land additional men and resupply ships against the conditions of said negotiations and in spite of repeated warnings.

In sum, he GOADED NC and left them no choice but to fire on said ships when they attempted to run the blockade.

In other words, he created a situation he KNEW would lead to war.

But hey - if the factually, morally and historically-inaccurate "Union=Good/Rebels=BAD" bit makes you feel better, more power to you.

Just don't expect the rest of us to allow your assertion of such delusions to go unchallenged.

Anon 3:38 illustrates the difficulty we'll have with defending ourselves against a rapacious, illegitimate government that views itself as the arbiter of its power.

Anon 3:38 has rationalized the current leviathan state in toto, which Lincoln did in fact create.

Lincoln was a proponent of the corporate welfare/warfare state. He was a protégé of Henry Clay, giving the eulogy at Clay's memorial service. Clay, as some will know, was an advocate of unlimited US government spending on infrastructure for the benefit of the few, at the expense of the many. Since Lincoln was intimately connected to the railroad industry, he benefited them via vast subsidies, the "Golden Spike" moment was paid for by the US government.

Lincoln did not "save the union", he staged a bloody coup d'état that effectively ended state power. Lincoln's actions led directly to the progressive/fascist era which begat the 16th, 17th, and 18th Amendments to the US Constitution.

The Confederacy lost their war for independence, every American lost when Lincoln won. It's unfortunate that John W. Booth couldn't have succeeded in his mission about two years sooner than he did.

Frankly, with that mindset-revelation as an opener, the rest should have been ignored altogether. Mea-Culpa.

For the rest, here's a bit more...

It's WRONG to view 1860 through 2010 eyes and mores. To understand history one must understand the mind of those who created it.

Most people - even in the South - were reaching the conclusion that slavery was wrong. Many had created wills which freed their slaves upon their death -- when they'd no longer be subject to the consequences.

Most slaves were savages, like much of Africa remains today. Without stern discipline, many were (understandably, to a point) dangerous and violent.

In sum, they were (not without justification at the time) viewed as potentially dangerous, retarded adults who couldn't take care of themselves, who would starve or resort to violent crime to survive.

Try to imagine being in the owner's position -- you know in your heart it's wrong, but you can't set them free and you need their labor to boot!

Remember - an overwhelming majority of slaves stayed right where they were post-bellum, working for room-and-board as they always had.

Yes - it's OBVIOUS that they now had a right to leave, thus making staying a voluntary act -- and that difference is not trivial -- but it illustrates the point I am making perfectly: Most simply could not have survived, even in our "advanced" (for the time) society.

As to the whole "horrors of splitting the union" bit -- again -- NONSENSE.

Had they been allowed to secede peacefully, one of two things would have happened: Either the CSA would have remained under Constitutional Government while the USA further evolved into tyranny, or the CSA would have eventually come back to rejoin the union, seeing the benefits of being part of a larger whole. Personally, I believe the latter.

In sum, NONE of this really matters.

The FACT is that the States had every right to secede, and that lincoln's tyranny was the beginning of the fall of our Republic.

The path is plain - from this unjust war to today's "unlimited Federal Power" is an almost perfectly straight line.

The day we became "The United States" instead of "united States" was a turning point from which we'll likely never recover without an exponentially larger bloodletting - and THIS time it really WILL be over slavery.

@ Dedicated Dad"Had they been allowed to secede peacefully, one of two things would have happened: Either the CSA would have remained under Constitutional Government while the USA further evolved into tyranny, or the CSA would have eventually come back to rejoin the union, seeing the benefits of being part of a larger whole. Personally, I believe the latter."

You really believe this huh... do you not understand that the South was able to start its war with the implicity assumption from Britain and France that they would intervene if the South showed promise. Do you understand that Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee commited what is known as treason? Do you think that because they were never executed for their crimes that the Lost Cause was justified?

And you think most slaves were "savages". Fact is, that is unadulterated racism, not the oppoistion to the current President that the MSM calls racism.

When will you get it, secession was never a constitutional right, just like nullification it was invented by Southern aristocrats wanting to preserve their economic system that functioned on human bondage. The fact that withdrawl from the Union was never even mentioned in the Constitution speaks volumes about where the soverignty lies.

If you truly think that secession is a magical right to fix all of the problems that you think started with Lincon (next you will be saying we lost our liberty even with the signing of the Articles of Confederation), then go ahead and try it, you will find that with secession, "Might makes right". But remember that the most likely candidates for secession are net drains on the federal treasury, meaning that you have no chance of sucess without foreign intervention, which means you will not be libertarian Mecca, you will be the eastern provinces of the People's Republic.

And why do you sound so eager to start an "exponentially larger bloodletting". How many wars have you fought in? Or are you just another Bill Ayers, with delusions of granduer about how you will solve all the problems by killing millions.

And to an earlier post by Dedicated Dad about the signing of the EP, the riots you speak of were in New York, in relation to conscription (banned by the 13th Amendment,not that Wilson, FDR, and LBJ ever cared), and abolition was unpopular in the North at the time. The reason Lincoln could do this was a direct consequence of Antietam, though in your views it would be called Sharpsburg, that if the North had not won that battle, then the Southern aristocracy's friends over the Atlantic surely would have intervened, so how does it feel knowing that your "noble cause" was just being pawns in an imperial game?

Anon 3:19 said: "You really believe this huh... do you not understand that the South was able to start its war with the implicity (sic) assumption from Britain and France that they would intervene if the South showed promise."Pat H. said: Neither the south, South Carolina, nor the Confederate States of America started the war, the Union did that. How is it that the Union asserted the lie that South Carolina started the war and then attempted to invade Virginia?

As to your assertions about Britain and France, you mean the Confederacy did exactly what the Continental Congress did with France during the war of secession from Great Britain? Actually, the Confederate States did a good deal less than that.Anon 3:19 said: Do you understand that Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee commited what is known as treason? Do you think that because they were never executed for their crimes that the Lost Cause was justified?Pat H. said: There was no treason, both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee lived in a sovereign nation other than the United States and were citizens thereof, in Lee's case, he lawfully resigned from the US Army and returned to his country. Accusations of treason are less than dishonorable, they're pathetic.Anon 3:19 said: "And you think most slaves were "savages". Fact is, that is unadulterated racism, not the oppoistion to the current President that the MSM calls racism."Pat H. said: Slaves were purchased from those that had enslaved them, other Africans, and brought to North America by British, French, and Northern shipping companies. Then there's the Corwin Amendment, endorsed by Lincoln, which would have made slavery permanent in all states that still had it. Slaves lived in the northern states first, and lived there until the Thirteenth Amendment was enforced, well into 1866-67. Who were the racists, again?Anon 3:19 said: "When will you get it, secession was never a constitutional right, just like nullification it was invented by Southern aristocrats wanting to preserve their economic system that functioned on human bondage. The fact that withdrawal from the Union was never even mentioned in the Constitution speaks volumes about where the soverignty lies."Pat H. said: The above is based on poor gathering of facts. As CA stated, and I restate, the Tenth Amendment reserves ALL powers not expressly granted, that's GRANTED, to the US government by said states, to the states or to the people. You may wish to learn about the Hartford Convention, that when the Yankee states were going to secede.Anon 3:19 said: "If you truly think that secession is a magical right to fix all of the problems that you think started with Lincoln (next you will be saying we lost our liberty even with the signing of the Articles of Confederation), then go ahead and try it,"Pat H. said: The problems didn't begin with Lincoln, he was merely the proverbial straw. Lincoln had a 25 year legislative history that the southern people knew and understood quite well. He represented those that favored corporate welfare and what was then called merchantilism, what we call fascism today. By the way, nullification was practiced by the northern states quite often, the New England states routinely nullified the federal fugitive slave laws. You must have forgotten that, eh?Anon 3:19 said: "you will find that with secession, "Might makes right"."Pat H. said: You might want to learn about the Second Vermont Republic, a return to sovereign nation status for that state. There's Alaska Independence Party too, but we can stay South if you wish.

*continued*Anon 3:19 said: "But remember that the most likely candidates for secession are net drains on the federal treasury, meaning that you have no chance of sucess without foreign intervention, which means you will not be libertarian Mecca, you will be the eastern provinces of the People's Republic."Pat H. said: The problem with those figures about federal largess is that they contain civilian salaries, military salaries, and the like in addition to welfare payments. If you think federal retirees won't remain here while they continue to receive their monthly annuity payments (until US government collapse that is), then think again. Same with the military retirees, they will remain right where they are.In the case of South Carolina, we have one of the largest port facilities in North America and are the third largest producer of electricity via nuclear power, only Illinois and Pennsylvania produce more by that method. So, your notions about economics of seceded states is a non-starter.

“Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War; willbe impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.”

Gen Patrick R. Cleburne, CSA

General Cleburne said it. The damnyankees have proven the wisdom of his foresight.

CA, Pat H & WWW - thanks for your gallant rebuttal of these brainwashed idiots - Kansas Scout & Anon 3:19. I have to admit, I didn't know all that stuff. But I also was a member of a little group in HS, in WI of all places, who thought that the Confederacy was right & we were being fed a pile of lies. Sometimes you just get a gut feeling.

@ Concerned American on 10th Amendment, you realize that war and treaty powers are reserved to the federal government under the Constitution. Therefore, how would a state declare itself independent, which would be making a treaty and declaring war, both of which are not state powers.If you are looking for secession justification, look for Amendment 762.

@Pat, the South started the war, they shot first, provoked means nothing. The US provoked Japan in WWII, but I don't see anyone talking about the Japanese Lost Cause, or the justness of Japan going to war against the Damn Yankees.

And about South Carolina being economically self sufficient regarding "nuclear power", you do realize that your state has no uranium mines. And port facilities mean nothing when faced with blockade, you guys should have learned that the last time.

A suggestion, for all the time you spend being Don Quixote for the Noble Confederate Aristocrats, why not try finding someone to replace Sen. Lindsay Graham, or running in the primary yourself.

Arguing over the dead and gone Lincoln is not helping anything, it just devolves into junk, and makes us look like racists to the general public (never mind that Lincoln was a racist, though I do not see John Brown listed as a heroic figure on this blog...).

Don K.,We're still in a world of hurt. Over 90% of americans think like those bozos. Big Brother has done a great job with the likes of public schools and Faux News dumbing down the populace. So don't look to your neighbors for help, they're more likely to want to lynch you for being abnormal. Thinking outside the box can be it's own curse.0321

"Why you give a platform for L. Neil's free traitor err trader ideology that has and will continue to destroy American manufacturing"

It seems like you believe that people tagged with an American social security number are unable to be competitive in manufacturing on a level worldwide playing field. Why do you believe that? And what better way to identify errors and remove them than honest competition? May the best factory, and the best workers, win.

Dedicated_Dad writes: "It's WRONG to view 1860 through 2010 eyes and mores. To understand history one must understand the mind of those who created it."

Do you similarly view today's fundamentalist Islam through the mad bombers' eyes? If not, why the inconsistency? I think that if I have a moral or scientific belief, I should judge everything and every time by it. Motivations are crucial, and most people who hold the wrong beliefs are simply mistaken instead of evil.

"Most [1800's slaves] simply could not have survived [as free men], even in our "advanced" (for the time) society."

Hogwash. I do not believe the slaves' childhoods were so bad as to prevent their mental development into human beings. Today you can look at the worst starving 3rd world war torn disaster, and the children there are more resilient, more sapient, more human than you imply. Yes they are damaged for life; no, they are not hopeless dependent zoo animals.

Anon 6:17 said "@ Concerned American on 10th Amendment, you realize that war and treaty powers are reserved to the federal government under the Constitution. Therefore, how would a state declare itself independent, which would be making a treaty and declaring war, both of which are not state powers."Pat H. said What treaty power? That's one of the craziest assertions I've ever seen regarding the reserved power of a state to secede, where did you receive that notion? I ask that because not even Lincoln, the Lincoln SCOTUS, or anyone else has ever ginned that one up.

The Tenth Amendment states what it states, the ratification of the Constitution was not making a treaty with the several states, if that were the case then the Constitution would have stated that.

Remember, Lincoln asserted that the Constitution was perpetual, the fact of the matter the Articles of Confederation were perpetual and stated such, yet the several states seceded from the Articles and entered the Constitutional compact of states.

How did they do that?

Anon 6:17 said "If you are looking for secession justification, look for Amendment 762."Pat H. said Cute, but no cigar. Things settled at the point of a gun do not remain settled, only mutual agreements remain settled until one or more of the parties to the agreement withdraw.

Anon 6:17 said "@Pat, the South started the war, they shot first, provoked means nothing. The US provoked Japan in WWII, but I don't see anyone talking about the Japanese Lost Cause, or the justness of Japan going to war against the Damn Yankees."Pat H. said No, sorry, the Union invaded sovereign territory belonging to South Carolina, an act of war. As I mentioned, the sovereign nation of the Confederacy gave the Union troops who'd violated a written agreement not to do what they in fact did over four months to withdraw from our invaded territory. Not only did they refuse, they attempted to land additional troops and munitions to reinforce their invasion beachhead. The Confederacy acted to defend their sovereign territory at that point.

Your attempt to draw a parallel with the Japanese attack upon a US territory falls far short of being valid. In the case of Fort Sumter, the Union Army were the equivalent of the Japanese invaders.

Another example of non-shooting acts of war is the fact that Franklin Roosevelt attempted to bait Germany into war in 1940 by giving Britain 50 US Navy warships, giving one belligerent war materials is an act of war against the other belligerent. German refused the bait, but they had a valid casus belli even though no shots were fired.

Anon 6:17 said "And about South Carolina being economically self sufficient regarding "nuclear power", you do realize that your state has no uranium mines. And port facilities mean nothing when faced with blockade, you guys should have learned that the last time."Pat H. said What blockade? The US Navy will be rusting away in whatever port they last tie up in. You just don't get it, obviously. The reality is that we won't be seceding from a viable government, it will simply rot away from us, secession will be necessary for our survival here.

In fact, the most likely event will be our blockading US government military installations in order to force them out, or to simply disband and integrate into our systems.

You're stuck in some kind of ahistorical aspic, unable to divorce yourself from your given propaganda from junior high school. Really, you're very deficient educationally.

*Continued*Anon 6:17 said "A suggestion, for all the time you spend being Don Quixote for the Noble Confederate Aristocrats, why not try finding someone to replace Sen. Lindsay Graham, or running in the primary yourself."Pat H. said How about you saying something that isn't gibberish?Anon 6:17 said "Arguing over the dead and gone Lincoln is not helping anything, it just devolves into junk, and makes us look like racists to the general public (never mind that Lincoln was a racist, though I do not see John Brown listed as a heroic figure on this blog...)."Pat H. said Arguing facts about the monster Lincoln isn't racist, since he was an avowed racist, it's simply truth telling.

Also, since Lincoln is routinely invoked by both the RINO's and Democrat Party, it's entirely appropriated to state the facts about the racist tyrant Lincoln.

To avoid being corrected all you have to do it to learn the facts yourself, then you can move on.

Keep trying to rationalize the illegal invasion of the Confederacy will get you exactly the same treatment over and over again.

The reason Americans cannot compete on a worldwide basis has to do with foriegn government subsidies of their corporations, lack of labor and environmental protections.

Tariffs are the constitutionally approved way to generate revenue, if you support a strict Constitution, then why would you be against them, surely GATT, WTO and NAFTA, have hurt our soveriegnty.

And @Pat, the Constitution also talks about suppressing rebellions and having Congress raise an army and the militia to do this, secession is never mentioned in the Constitution, and making a right to do this in the 10th Amendment, is as bad as the Dred Scott Decision and the Roe v Wade decision.

I see no credentials of your being a Constitutional Law Scholar, so why are you hating on my "education". And the fact is, that you are supporting a Neo-Confederate agenda, and that cause is assoiciated with the Woodrow Wilson inspired KKK.

Fort Sumter was federal property, not that of SC. Whose flag was flying on it when the shooting began?

By defending the Confederacy, you are rationalizing the keeping of millions of human beings in bondage for the benefit of aristocrats and the attempt of the great powers of that era try to destroy this nation, just as a defender of Lincoln supports the illegal declaration of martial law, income taxes, conscription and war tactics that killed thousands.

Neither side was right, can you accept that?

Otherwise, you seem to be pushing a different orthodoxy rather than accepting that the view of history is clouded.

One last thing, FDR traded the destroyers for bases, they were not given away. How is giving one belligerent war materials an act of war against the other, by that definition the British and French were actually at war with us in the Civil War, we were at war with the Central Powers in WWI years before any declartion, we were at war with Iran during the Iraq-Iran war, and are currently at war with the PRC be selling to the ROC.

Interestingly, we/they armed both sides during each example.

Thanks for your help, Don Patoxide, faithful servant of the Lords of the Confederacy.

I will take this back if you unequivaclly state that human bondage practiced in the southern states (as well as the Union ones) was completely morally wrong, and that it deserved to be destroyed.

Anon 12:55's post is a case of being unable to argue the facts, so "I'll bring in an unrelated series of things hoping no one will notice my failure".

That's not going to fly.

You've been presented with heavily documented facts of the lawful secession of the several southern states, secession remains lawful today.

You've been shown, through substantial references in both the "American Lenin" essay and the numerous supporting references, that the Union invasion of the Confederacy was an illegal aggression, pure and simple, and that Lincoln was a monster that over saw the murders or disappearances of nearly one million Americans, both black and white, both Confederate and Union citizens.

Pat, I am seceding from posting on this blog. Neither side is truly defensible, and crimes were commited on both sides, and it would be a poor example to copy for today. You motives may be noble, but nonetheless, I cannot support your cause because it is too closely related to Neo-Confederates and by relation the KKK. I simply do not trust anyone calling for a secession from this country, which will leave us to foreign domination. The nation and freedom cannnot exist without each other, maybe we can agree on that.

"The reason Americans cannot compete on a worldwide basis has to do with foriegn government subsidies of their corporations"

The wealth contained in those foreign subsidies originate from foreign taxpayers. Foreign governments don't create wealth, they just redistribute it. If they redistribute it away from where it ought to be, the foreign country as a whole gets less competitive. In the long term, foreign government subsidies of foreign corporations can not make all the foreign corporations more competitive.

"lack of labor [protections]"

That's an advantage. See 'government can't make a whole country wealthier' in the above paragraph.

"[lack of] environmental protections"

They can go down the road the US did, and turn their waterways into industrial and septic sewers. Then they can continue down the road the US did, and clean them up again when they get tired of living around poisons. No matter what environmental road they choose, we have the same choices available to us. I ask again, why can't we compete?

You have a lot to learn about Lincoln, and the context of his reply to Greely.

Did you know that members of Congress, in the NORTH, were calling for the arrest and execution of anyone who said slavery had to end, for the war to end?

Let me repeat that. Members of CONGRESS were calling for the arrrest and execution, of anyone who said the war was about slavery.

Unless you understand Lincoln’s predictament, what he was faced with, you are simply cluessless about why LIncoln had to bend over backwards to speak in terms of Union.

LIncoln's hatred of slavery was well known. In fact, Lincoln said in his Peoria speech that slave owners should be kicked to DEATH. Not kicked to unconsciousness, but kicked to DEATH.

The Southern leaders were screaming from the roof tops that Lincolns real goal was to end slavery.

Actions speak louder that words. Why every “intellectual” rushes to this Greely letter to “prove” what Lincoln cared about, is beyond me.

Lincoln had to put the vile pro slavery traitors in the North in a headlock, while he beat the living hello out of the pro slavery traitors and terrorist in the South. The way he put the vile pro slavery traitors in the North is with his WORDS. And those words were evident in his letter to Greely.

Lincoln’s actions were clear. At every point, he went full speed, to eradicate slavery. Since he wasn’t king, he coudlnt just ban it. But once the South attacked, he had his moral duty and the justification to end slavery if he could. And he did.

Lincoln personally got the 13th Amendment put on the GOP platform in 64. His advisors BEGGED him not to even mention slavery, to let slavery be decided by a “national referendum” after the war was over. The begged him to back off. He would surely lose the election, McClellan was sure to win, and slavery would continue, and the war would be lost.

Unless you understand that, you just dont get it.

So essentially Lincoln waited until AFTER he was re-elected, and then went hello-bent for leather to push the 13th Amendment. He personally got it passed in Congress where it was stuck hopelessly.

How did he unstick it? Bribery, frankly. He found out what the hold outs wanted, and gave it to them. Usually it was jobs or power. So he gave it. He just gave them whatever they wanted, and they switched their vote.

So Lincoln got the 13th Amendment passed. His death would create a huge outpouring of sympathy, and cause the 13th to be ratified by the states after his death.

So in life, and by his death, Lincoln literally was THE most important man, on earth, to get the slaves free. No one else even comes close.

Lincoln has been called a racist, a tyrant, a monster, by every punk since the civil war. Some of those punks have nice suits and PhDs.

There was a genius that watched all this unfold. Who knew Lincoln. Who knew the vile slavers in the South, who knew the vile slavery supporters in the North (they actually gave Lincoln more trouble that their cousins in the South). This man had been a slave. He had been hunted. He was born from the rape of his slave owning father, who raped his mother. His own father made him buy his freedom, or face prison.

This man was Frederick Douglass. Go see what Frederick Douglass said about Lincoln. Douglass was THERE. Douglass knew the whole sitution. He didn’t get his information from distorted, Southern edited “text books” He saw it unfold.

He felt the whip, he saw the tortures, he knew the men, North and South. He knew what Lincoln was up against. He knew why Lincoln wrote that letter to Greely.

Go see what Douglass said about Lincoln. Then get back to me.

Learn real history. Not this nonsense that shows up in text books that has been sanitized, white washed, distorted.

You have a lot to learn about Lincoln, and the context of his reply to Greely.

Did you know that members of Congress, in the NORTH, were calling for the arrest and execution of anyone who said slavery had to end, for the war to end?

Let me repeat that. Members of CONGRESS were calling for the arrrest and execution, of anyone who said the war was about slavery.

Unless you understand Lincoln’s predictament, what he was faced with, you are simply cluessless about why LIncoln had to bend over backwards to be concerned about the UNION only.

Actions speak louder that words. Why every “intellectual” rushes to this Greely letter to “prove” what Lincoln cared about, is beyond me.

Lincoln had to put the vile pro slavery traitors in the North in a headlock, while he beat the living hello out of the pro slavery traitors and terrorist in the South. The way he put the vile pro slavery traitors in the North is with his WORDS. And those words were evident in his letter to Greely.

Lincoln’s actions were clear. At every point, he went full speed, to eradicate slavery. Since he wasn’t king, he coudlnt just ban it. But once the South attacked, he had his moral duty and the justification to end slavery if he could. And he did.

Lincoln personally got the 13th Amendment put on the GOP platform in 64. His advisors BEGGED him not to even mention slavery, to let slavery be decided by a “national referendum” after the war was over. The begged him to back off. He would surely lose the election, McClellan was sure to win, and slavery would continue, and the war would be lost.

Unless you understand that, you just dont get it.

So essentially Lincoln waited until AFTER he was re-elected, and then went hello-bent for leather to push the 13th Amendment. He personally got it passed in Congress where it was stuck hopelessly.

How did he unstick it? Bribery, frankly. He found out what the hold outs wanted, and gave it to them. Usually it was jobs or power. So he gave it. He just gave them whatever they wanted, and they switched their vote.

So Lincoln got the 13th Amendment passed. His death would create a huge outpouring of sympathy, and cause the 13th to be ratified by the states after his death.

So in life, and by his death, Lincoln literally was THE most important man, on earth, to get the slaves free. No one else even comes close.

Lincoln has been called a racist, a tyrant, a monster, by every punk since the civil war. Some of those punks have nice suits and PhDs.

There was a genius that watched all this unfold. Who knew Lincoln. Who knew the vile slavers in the South, who knew the vile slavery supporters in the North (they actually gave Lincoln more trouble that their cousins in the South). This man had been a slave. He had been hunted. He was born from the rape of his slave owning father, who raped his mother. His own father made him buy his freedom, or face prison.

This man was Frederick Douglass. Go see what Frederick Douglass said about Lincoln. Douglass was THERE. Douglass knew the whole sitution. He didn’t get his information from distorted, Southern edited “text books” He saw it unfold.

He felt the whip, he saw the tortures, he knew the men, North and South. He knew what Lincoln was up against. He knew why Lincoln wrote that letter to Greely.

Go see what Douglass said about Lincoln. Then get back to me.

Learn real history. Not this nonsense that shows up in text books that has been sanitized, white washed, distorted.